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Friday 9 January 2015

Europe

Europe is named after the Phoenician princess Europa of Greek myth. the mother of King Minos of Crete, she was seduced by Zeus disguised as a bull. Europa climbed on to his back and he carried her off into the sea and took her to Crete.

Geographically, Europe is not a continent. Its boundary with Asia was a Greek idea to name the two sides of the Hellespont (now the Dardanelles).

 The oldest city in Europe is the eastern Croatian city of Vinkovci. The city has been inhabited for the the past 8,000 years.

In the 10th century AD Europe was a shambles of crude wooden houses and churches. This was in sharp contrast to the continuation of Roman building techniques in the Byzantine and Islamic empires in the East

In the 10th century AD there wasn't a single city in Europe that had a population of more than 400,000.

About 30% of the European population died from the plague between 1347 and 1350.

There are only 10 modern countries that have never been (in their entirety) a colony of a European empire: Afghanistan, China, Iran, Japan, Liberia, Mongolia, North/South Korea,  Saudi Arabia and Thailand.

Europe covers 3.93 million square miles, which is roughly 6.7 per cent of the Earth's surface (or two per vent if you include the oceans).

By Rob984 - Derived from File:Europe orthographic Caucasus Urals boundary.svg and File:Europe on the globe (red).svg., Wikipedia Commons

About 740 million people, which is 11 per cent of the world’s population, live in Europe.

There is a tribe in Africa who believe Europe is the afterlife, and all its inhabitants are spirits.

The midpoint of Europe is a Slovak village, Kremnické Bane.

The European part of Russia accounts for 40 per cent of Europe’s land area.

The largest country entirely in Europe is Ukraine.

The most visited place in Europe is Disneyland, Paris.

Sources Daily Express, Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia © 1998 The Learning Company, Inc.

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